Megan Hart - Strangers of the Night

She ran harder, leaping a park bench with one foot on the seat and pushing off with the other on the back, then hitting the grass with her fingertips digging into the soft earth before she leaped again. It was ridiculous to think Jed had done anything to the guard. Though there’d been plenty of documentation about what he’d been capable of when he was younger, all the reports Vadim had given her said that Jed’s abilities had begun fading in late adolescence, becoming completely extinct over time.

It had happened with other members of the commune where he’d been born. Children born with psychokinetic or telepathic talents had been taken away from the Collins Creek farm under the guise of child protective services, but they’d been sent to places like Wyrmwood, not foster care. They’d been held, tested. Of those that had been released in adulthood, none of them had been reported as maintaining their abilities. Most of the ones the Crew had been able to track had suffered from the years of institutionalization. High rates of suicide and crime had followed. Jed was one of the last of the Collins Creek kids the Crew had been able to find.

She jumped up to grab a low-hanging tree limb and swung out, arching her back. Landing hard. She no longer smelled lavender, but the memory of it wouldn’t leave her. There’d been more than a few times when she’d thought she sensed Jed’s presence while she was at the desk, always looking up, expecting to see him there but finding only empty space. Sometimes, a joke would tickle its way into her head until she laughed aloud.

Maybe all of that had been Jed. He had come to her defense, not that she’d needed him to, with that moron Clement. Which meant that despite all the information Wyrmwood had been collecting on him, he wasn’t telekinetically dead.

But he was going to be physically dead if he didn’t reveal that truth to the Wyrmwood team, or if Samantha wasn’t able to get him out of there when Vadim gave the go-ahead. It would have to be soon, she thought, thinking of how drained Jed had looked when they’d brought him back to the room.

On the way home, she picked up a burner phone and sent off a text to the number she’d memorized.

How long?

Then she tossed the phone into a Dumpster and continued on home. She didn’t worry about how Vadim was going to answer her. He always found a way.

Chapter 8

Persephone had stopped dreaming about Collins Creek a long time ago. If she did think about her childhood, it was only in a series of flashing memories she did her best to shove aside. She and her twin brother, Phoenix, had managed to escape when Wyrmwood attacked and took most of the children away. The two of them had grown up on the streets, running constantly from Wyrmwood’s scouts who’d found other survivors and made them disappear. The rumors about what was done to the Collins Creek children had circulated. Phoenix and Persephone had always managed to stay a few steps ahead of them, and in many ways the memories of the things they’d done to survive had been much worse than anything she could truly remember from her first ten years on the farm.

Now, though, she couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder everywhere she went. She couldn’t prove the guy from this morning had been from Wyrmwood.

Twenty years had passed since the raid. Why would they suddenly be looking so hard now? Turning over in her bed, she thought of calling Vadim. He’d offered her and Phoenix sanctuary, but her brother had refused, not willing to throw in his lot with a group that, to him, seemed as likely to turn out to be as awful as Wyrmwood. Persephone had not been quite as convinced of that. She had, in fact, done a job or two for Vadim over the years. Never anything serious or long-term. The money was fantastic, but like her brother, she’d never wanted to commit to it.

Vadim would know if there was anything new going on with Wyrmwood, though. Restless, Persephone got out of bed and paced through her apartment, checking as always the exits. One door in, one door out. The only window a single transom on the alley side of the building. She could get through it if she had to, but her real escape was the service elevator, a dumbwaiter, in a closet off the kitchen.

Running through her escape plan calmed her a little, but she was still not going to sleep. She needed something else, and she knew exactly where to find it. She dialed a familiar number.

“Leila? Girl, what are you up to?”

Leila was up to going out and causing trouble, as she almost always was. Persephone didn’t hang out with her very often for just that reason—any kind of trouble Leila wanted to get into usually ended up bad. She didn’t have the sense of self-preservation that Persephone had, or even Phoenix, who admittedly could be way less worried about keeping his ass out of the fire. Leila’s skill was in counting. Her brain was an abnormally brilliant calculator that could figure the most complex equations with little more than a blink or two. She had not yet managed to use this Collins Creek–created skill for much of anything, though. Maybe she never would.

Still, it was good to get out, go dancing. Get a little drunk. Grind on a handsome guy or two or three. Persephone and Leila hit the town, dressed to...well, not to kill, Persephone thought absently as she scanned the crowed for likely prey. She never wanted to kill anyone ever again.

All at once, there he was from across the room. Kane Dennis, the cop who lived in Persephone’s building. He was the one with the hot water problem. He was leaning against the back wall, a cup of beer in his hand. Scanning the room, back and forth, as though he were looking for something. Or someone. It didn’t look like he’d seen her yet.

She began to layer herself, homing in on his mind. One at a time, that was the only way she could do this. He would have no idea that he was looking at a different woman from the one everyone else could see.

“I’m glamouring for that guy,” Persephone said to Leila with a discreet point toward Kane. “You’ll be okay here?”

Leila was already tonsils-deep into a make-out session with a guy she’d picked up a few minutes before, and waved Persephone away. Why, exactly, Persephone was doing this when there was a club full of dudes she didn’t have to see in front of the mailbox every morning, she could not say. Only that he was there and she was here, and a curling flicker of need was rising inside her that she wanted to sate.

Maybe it was because he was a cop. She would be safe. If someone broke in and tried to take her, she thought, blaming the booze and the smoke and the little white pill of undetermined origin that Leila had slipped her earlier for this ragged train of thought. If someone broke in, Kane would be able to protect her. Wouldn’t he?

By the time she got to him, she wore longer legs. Bigger tits as usual, since that’s what most men seemed to dig. Soft, round booty. Dusky skin. Dark ringlets. Red lips, dark eyes.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Maria. Thinking about getting out of here, how about you?”

That was all it took. Persephone had not figured Kane for a guy so easily seduced and was in truth a little put off at how simple it had been, but she supposed it didn’t matter as long as she got what she needed from him. Hard cock. Big hands. Sweet tongue. They found a cheap room in one of the hotels lining the street this end of town.

He kissed her mouth as soon as they got inside the door, his hands roaming over her. Fingers playing beneath her skirt, he found her already wet. Slick. Hot. He slipped his fingers inside her, fucking in and out, and she opened for him. His thumb pressed her clit, a steady pace that had her ready to go in minutes.

He let her lead him to the bed and strip him down. He watched her do the same. He rolled her over, nudging open her knees. She thought he would go down on her; she hoped he would, but instead Kane pressed a series of kisses to her belly, up to her breasts. Her throat. Her mouth. He’d pulled a condom from his wallet while they undressed and sheathed himself so efficiently that he was inside her in moments.